Soldier

The Department of Defense says a Maryland soldier has died in Afghanistan. Spc. Anthony A. Paci, 30, of Rockville died Thursday from injuries suffered during a vehicle rollover. Paci was assigned to Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state. Paci enlisted in October 2004. He deployed to Iraq from December 2005 to November 2006. Afghanistan was his second deployment. --Associated Press

On his Fox News show Monday night, Bill O'Reilly suggested using mercenaries to fight the Islamic State (ISIS) instead of U.S. ground forces, which President Obama has repeatedly vowed not to deploy. The use of mercenaries is as old as warfare itself. Alexander the Great used them. King George III hired German mercenaries to fight for the British in the American Revolution. Today mercenaries go by other names, like “contractor . " The president is to be commended for assembling a coalition that includes Arab states, but why are more of our European allies not part of it?

Army 1st Lt. Edmund Carazo has returned to the United States after his deployment overseas at a forward operating base, serving in support of Operation Enduring Freedom, the official name given to anti-terrorism military operations involving U.S. troops and allied coalition partners. With eight years of military service, Carazo is an infantry officer assigned to the 4th Airborne Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska. The son of Nancy Carazo, of Laurel, he is a 1999 graduate of Meade High School and received his bachelor's in 2004 from Towson University and master's in 2008 from Troy University, in Alabama..

Army National Guard units in Maryland and across the country are postponing drills this month to help the National Guard Bureau close an unexpected budget shortfall, officials said Tuesday. If Congress does not find the money to close the gap, they said, the drills could be canceled. About 3,900 Maryland guardsmen would be sidelined during September to save $1.5 million - part of an effort to trim the Guard's overall budget by tens of millions of dollars in coming weeks, said Col. Charles Kohler of the Maryland National Guard.

As a Maryland taxpayer and resident, I cringed at Gov. Martin O'Malley's "happy talk" send-off of our National Guard ("Md. Soldiers off to Egypt," March 25). Just when did they sneak Egypt into the military mix anyhow? We're already involved in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya — but Egypt, wow, that came as a surprise. I find nothing heartwarming in The Sun's "kissy face" photos of soldiers saying goodbye to their families. The Maryland National Guard was not set up to keep the peace in Egypt.

The release of America's only prisoner of war in Afghanistan in a trade for five senior Taliban commanders from U.S. custody took only minutes Saturday. But it followed 31/2 years of secret on-and-off negotiations that produced far less than the White House had hoped. The idea of swapping prisoners emerged in early 2011, administration and congressional officials said Tuesday, when U.S. officials still sought to convince Taliban political leaders to come to the negotiating table to end the grinding war in Afghanistan.

City police were still searching for leads in Sunday night's fatal shooting of a soldier on leave from Afghanistan for Christmas. On Tuesday, police corrected their previous account that Clifford Jamar Williams, 22, was with his wife when he was gunned down on the way back from the supermarket. Donny Moses, a police spokesman, said Williams was alone in his vehicle when an unknown gunman opened fire, and he flagged down a passer-by in the 600 block of S. Wickham Road who called 911. In another development, police have confirmed through surveillance footage that Williams was at an area supermarket before his death.

Army officials are investigating a stabbing that occurred at a home on Fort Meade Wednesday afternoon. Military police were called to a home on post at 1 p.m. for a report of a man being stabbed by a soldier, Meade officials said. When police arrived, the suspect barricaded himself in the home. Agents from the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command and Anne Arundel County police officers convinced the man to give himself up. During the barricade situation, Meade Heights Elementary School adjusted its dismissal to accommodate the closure of Reece Road.

A Maryland soldier died Thursday in Iraq, the U.S. Department of Defense said. Sgt. John F. Burner III, 32, of Baltimore, who was based at Fort Gordon, Ga., died as a result of a medical condition in Iskandariya, Iraq, said fort spokesman Buz Yarnell. He was not killed in combat. Sergeant Burner's unit, the 63rd Signal Battalion (Expeditionary), 35th Signal Brigade, deployed Aug. 21, Yarnell said. He said Sergeant Burner was survived by his wife and two daughters, ages 6 and 2, who live in Grovetown, Ga., near the base.

Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake's attempt to justify the police department's possession of military equipment to WBAL on the grounds that there might be a terrorist attack is ridiculous. The people to deal with such an attack are the National Guard, not the police. The function of the police is to deal with ordinary law enforcement, and they can do that best by remembering they are civilians and a part of the community they serve, not by making believe they are soldiers at war. Katharine W. Rylaarsdam - To respond to this letter, send an email to talkback@baltimoresun.com . Please include your name and contact information.

Jon Walker's friends were looking forward to watching him reunite with his beloved German shepherd, Zara, when he returns from a year-long Army deployment in Afghanistan later this month. But his dog bolted into a patch of woods while playing catch with a dogsitter in Crownsville last week and a non-stop effort to find her has proven fruitless, leaving them suspicious that there might be more to this than meets the eye. “Jon is devastated,” says his friend Heather Cappelli, who's spearheading the effort to find Zara.

It has been said that the United States has never really stopped fighting its Civil War. A glance at any current news source will suggest that we may never be finished with the post-9/11 conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, either. All of which makes "Healing Wars," the thoroughly original theatrical work conceived and directed by Liz Lerman, all the more timely and important. Commissioned by George Washington University and given its premiere by Arena Stage, this engrossing fusion of drama and dance (some music, too)

I'm sure the insurgent conservatives who call themselves the tea party, the folks who have rocked the Republican Partyand pushed the country's agenda to the right, are perfectly nice people. They are good to their grandkids and don't kick their dogs. And I think they genuinely care about their country. What I wonder about, though, is whether they really understand who it is that they are supporting. They claim to represent the interest of average Americans -- the upright, hard-working men and women who pay the taxes, rear the next generation and struggle to make ends meet.

Like most Americans, the Ehrlichs celebrated the return of a captured U.S. soldier from Afghanistan. What parent would not possess a degree of empathy for the parents of Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, held by the Taliban since June 30, 2009? A positive aspect of a returned U.S. soldier is the notion that the U.S. military, the greatest force for good on planet Earth, recognizes its obligation to rescue its own. It's what a civilized, just nation does in consideration of the risk assumed by its young soldiers.

The release of America's only prisoner of war in Afghanistan in a trade for five senior Taliban commanders from U.S. custody took only minutes Saturday. But it followed 31/2 years of secret on-and-off negotiations that produced far less than the White House had hoped. The idea of swapping prisoners emerged in early 2011, administration and congressional officials said Tuesday, when U.S. officials still sought to convince Taliban political leaders to come to the negotiating table to end the grinding war in Afghanistan.

Army officials are investigating a stabbing that occurred at a home on Fort Meade Wednesday afternoon. Military police were called to a home on post at 1 p.m. for a report of a man being stabbed by a soldier, Meade officials said. When police arrived, the suspect barricaded himself in the home. Agents from the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command and Anne Arundel County police officers convinced the man to give himself up. During the barricade situation, Meade Heights Elementary School adjusted its dismissal to accommodate the closure of Reece Road.

The author Ishmael Beah grew up listening to his grandmother tell folk tales that explained, among other things, why a spider has a narrow waist. He quickly realized that beneath the whimsy were hidden life lessons he was expected to master. "I would [sit] around the fire every evening and ask my grandmother what the stories meant, and she would refuse to tell me," Beah said. "The stories were like medicine. I was supposed to find the meanings for myself and let them strengthen me. " The boy needed all the strengthening he could get when he was kidnapped at age 13, drafted as a child soldier into Sierra Leone's civil war, and forced to commit atrocities.